Faith, religion, and the afterlife: A form of denial

Great Debates
661

Earlier I said,

“My only objection is the wide blankets tossed by some atheists that all god belief is irrational and delusional because there’s no objective proof, all the while exhibiting their own tendency to insist things are factual that they can’t prove.”

And later provided these examples from earlier in the thread.

And your response was

They don’t have to. They are examples of things claimed to be factual that cannot be proven, IOW, an atheist stating something is true, that he is unable to prove.
Ftr; I’ve seen this type of claim on the SDMB before from several different posters.
Statements like “The world would be better off without religion” or “ The harm done by religion far outweighs any good” are statements that can only be personal opinions rather than presented as facts.

To which I responded.

Your response to that.

You asked me for examples of things atheists had stated as facts that couldn’t be proven. I provided what I consider to be those examples. So, were those examples started as facts? Can they be proven? Is the overall effect of religion overwhelming evil as stated in the example?

662

Yes, they do. You said:

"My only objection is the wide blankets tossed by some atheists that all god belief is irrational and delusional because there’s no objective proof

You said that there was examples of that in this thread. You haven’t shown any. Objective proof is an unreasonable goal. Der Trihs even responded to you that it’s not about objective proof (and there was more in his post) and you never replied.

Those statements were made by Der Trihs. His position in many threads (and in this one) is that there’s no “proof” of anything. So asking him for “objective proof” is unreasonable. Asking for evidence would be more reasonable. Did you ask him? He already provided a link in post 444.

That’s exactly what they seem like to me- personal opinions.

Why don’t you ask the person that made the statements? They seem like opinions to me, but again, Der Trihs did provide a link. Did he “insist” those statements are factual and not just opinions? Did he attempt to back them up? If not, did you ask him to before claiming that he is unable to “prove” it?

663

Wow this is pretty disingenuous. I’m talking about a very specific sentence that never mentioned atheism , that you insisted implied something about atheism. You’ve repeatedly avoided dealing with that aspect of it. No matter. I’m not interested in dealing with it again.

What I just demonstrated was there was no contradiction except in your mind, your reading and defining of my posts.
Maybe you’ve noticed that in the dictionary there is often more than one definition of a word. It has to do with the various ways that word is used in the english language, yet all the definitions are true. Nothing was mutually exclusive except in your semantic crapstorm incorrect defining of my posts.

NOTHING I said makes the claim that agnosticism is ONLY and SINGULARLY about knowledge and nothing else. That only exists in your incorrect reading and the nonsenseical way you insist on pulling things out of context and parsing words and phrases. and here comes a great example.

No it says absolutely NOTHING about agostics being mutually exclusive from theists and atheists. That only exists in your mind. Isn’t it true that I NEVER specifically said agnosticism is mutually exclusive from atheism or theism and it is only YOUR CLAIM pulled from your reading of my posts.

Only in your mind. The simple chart above is about the individual declaring themselves either atheist, theist, or agnostic. It’s spelled out pretty clearly in that way. It says NOTHING about knowlege or whether all three can agree on not being able to know for sure.

Good lord. I’m not talking about committment as a blood oath meant for a lifetime. I’m talking about the comittment and conscious decision to actually declare your position on belief, lack of it, or the unwillingness to committ either way. I only use that word because the dictionary uses the term in describing agnostic. Maybe you can complain to them as well.

664

Holy crap, you can pull “I’m not a thesit” out of context and repeat it over and over as if it proves something, but here you can’t tell the difference between two phrases in a sentence, and don’t even include it here. It says
“all the while exhibiting their own tendency to insist things are factual that they can’t prove.”
so the examples I gave are an atheist claiming things are factual that they can’t prove.

If they are that’s fine. Perhaps there’s an implied IMO there, but I’ve had this discussion several times on the SDMB and I’ve yet to have someone making those type of statements admit they are just personal opinions they have no way of realistically proving. It seems to me that if you’re going to sharply critisize others for claiming things to be true that they can’t prove, you ought to be more cautious about the claims you make and clearly identify outrageous opinions you can’t prove.

You asked for examples and I provided them. If you’re saying they are opinins and not presented as facts then there’s nothing to discuss.

This is not my first go round in GD on this subject. I won’t continue to have the same pointless discussion with the same poster over and over again.

665

I have a feeling you will be dealing with it again. You have claimed several times that you don’t want to talk about certain things but then you keep doing it. Why even bother continuing to claim that you’re going to stop?

I can’t follow back far enough to know exactly what sentence you’re even talking about. But I don’t care. You’ve made statements about atheism and it’s definition multiple times and that’s what matters.

You haven’t.

I know that. You claimed agnosticism means on thing when you were making general pronouncements and then changed the definition when you wanted to label yourself. I went over several times how you did this.

Yes, there was plenty of times that you defined agnosticism in a way that was mutually exclusive from theism and atheism or used the word that way when making statements. I went over this several times and again in post 660. I’m tempted to do it again, but the reader can scroll up and take a look for himself. Just one perfect example:

***An agnostic is not willing to declare either way and chooses to not commit to either atheism or theism. ***

Are you still going to claim “Nothing was mutually exclusive except in your semantic crapstorm incorrect defining of my posts”? The above quote is blatantly excluding agnosticism from theism and atheism.

Everything you say in the quote below shows that agnosticism is mutually exclusive from atheism and theism:

***"But let’s look at it another way. A sliding scale of degrees of belief

Th<-------------------------------Ag-------------------At-------------------->

On one end the most ardent believer, on the other , the most ardent nonbeliever. Somewhere in the middle , a group who are agniostic. Who decline to choose belief or non belief. Right next to the agnostic , a hairs breadth away in degrees of belief, is the Theist who may have some doubts and acknowledges the problems with belief , but still identifies as someone who believes in god in some form, perhaps the mysterious undefined other.
The agnostic next to him has many similarities, the difference being he cannot in good conscience identify as a believer. He has one too many doubts to say “I believe” but finds enough unanswered questions to not choose" I don’t believe"
Further down the line is the agnostic who is a hairs breadth away from Atheism. He more skeptical than his fellow agnostic, but still unwilling to declare “I don’t believe. Nerxt to him, someone who has made the decision to declare themsleves an atheist. znd so on.”***

You specifically say that the agnostic can not in good conscience identify as a believer and finds enough unanswered questions to not choose" I don’t believe. You say that further down the line is the agnostic who is a hairs breadth away from Atheism. But he never gets there, does he? That’s because everything about what you wrote shows that you are defining agnosticism in a way that is mutually exclusive from theism and atheism. Again, I’ve shown other examples of you doing the same thing.

Right. Again showing that one label is mutually exclusive from the other. Why pick one? Well, according to your chart, one would have to.

Exactly. All of your earlier definitions did.

Nice try. That was never my implication.

And making a declaration or commitment is not necessary to be an atheist.

You said this:

***A theist and atheist have declared themselves either believers or non believers ***
It’s not true. It’s a ridiculous claim.

Your other odd claim regarding atheism:

***I don’t believe in god. because there is no objective evidence that any such things exist, I acknowledge that this can’t be known in an absolute or scientific sense. An athiest, ***

Again, in the definition above, an atheist must also be an agnostic and be an atheist for a specific reason. Bizarre.

I’m talking about your statement about atheism.

666

I didn’t. Someone that is not a theist has no beliefs in the existence of any gods.

I’m quite aware of your claim. You have failed to back it up and I have shown why that is.

Why would they give a personal opinion and then “admit” that that’s all it is unless they’re asked to do so? Ask the one that made the claim if that’s an interesting point for you.

I agree to an extent. However, asking someone to prove a claim about the existence of a magical being and then making claims that sure sound like opinions such as “the world would be better off without religion” doesn’t strike me as being hypocritical, especially if you haven’t bothered asking the person making the claim to back it up and the poster has given reasons why many times on this board.

Not only am I saying that; I’m also saying that you can’t claim the poster is unable to prove something when you haven’t asked him to. He also has given his evidence to back up his opinion several times on this board and even in this thread.

Hard to believe since you’re doing it repeatedly in this thread all the while claiming that you’re done. But if you don’t ask that poster to back something up, your statement that he is unable to prove something is a baseless accusation.

667

NM - responded to the wrong post

668

No, any purpose at all. The universe hardly seems to be benevolent, but that doesn’t change anything. Deists do usually assume benevolence, because that suits a need for a purpose, but that isn’t required.

669

I have a question for agnostics. One part of it is that we can never know that no gods exist. No argument with that - I don’t anyone on any side of this issue thinks we can know this.

The other part is not being able to know that some god does exist. I’m confused if this refers to our current state of evidence or if it refers to any possible state of evidence. Today I think it is fair to say this - but it is also fair to say it of any nonexistent thing. If X does not exist, then we cannot know that X exists. A tautology, really.

It gets more interesting if you think this is true for any condition. If a God swooped down and did tricks that violates the laws of physics in a fundamental way, can you say you don’t know he exists without also saying you don’t know that anything exists? It is kind of equivalent to not knowing that God does not exist - while we might believe he doesn’t, we can’'t say for sure that some God won’t swoop down and prove us wrong.
Possible today is not the same thing as possible forever.

670

In order to be a theist, you have to believe in at least one deity; it can be inferred and is almost out-right stated in the official definition that: a theist’s god has at least some vaguely describable characteristics. A deist being one of the most vague forms of a theist.

In order to be an atheist you have to denounce all belief that any deity exists.

I see what you’re saying about an agnostic that says, “I’m not a theist,” being an atheist. I really do. I just think you’re trying to force something into a box that it doesn’t fit into. Just because someone is not a theist, does not make them an atheist. If you look at the definitions, then consider that an agnostic who doesn’t believe in any specific deity [so not a theist], but holds the thought that deities are capable of existing [so not an atheist], then you can see why all three terms can be mutually exclusive, but as said before, are not always mutually exclusive.

671

Ah, so circling back to my original statement: “for all a deist claims, a deity might have created the universe the same way we created the internet or computers.” So you basically agree then?

672

See, I don’t believe and I never said I believe, so I cannot be this. A part of me also wants to believe that I will win the lottery, but that doesn’t mean I believe this will happen to me. The fact that I acknowledge the strong possibility (in my opinion) of deities, but do not actually hold a belief, makes me neither theist or atheist. I’m not a theist because I have no belief in any deity. I’m not an atheist because I have thoughts on the likelihood of deities that go beyond what science suggests. So, IMO, I’m a plain agnostic; no qualifiers.

If someone wants to say that I’m theistically inclined, but not an agnostic theist, then I guess they can. It just seems easier to say I’m agnostic.

Yes, but you did call me a deist, which is a theist, when nothing I said could allow you to think that. I got the impression that’s just what you wanted me to be I guess, sry.

And saying that “I come off as a theist” is just my point. Agnostics are often inclined to acknowledge arguments for theism and willingly to look at them more earnestly than atheists. Atheists are generally set in their ways, and more than likely bring this approach: “I’ve heard it all before.” The more time I spend on here, the more I see the atheistic thought process of: “If you’re not an atheist, you must be a theist,” when that’s a fallacy.

I may end up an atheist once my thirsty curiosity has been quenched, or I may end up some kind of vague theist, IDK yet.

673

I don’t know about cosmodan, but I asked Der Trihs those questions, and he responded in a generally dismissive or argumentative manner with virtually no substantiation to his audacious claims. He treated people who didn’t automatically assume that religion is “ridiculous and blatantly obnoxious” as if they were ignoring some sort of obvious TRUTH about religion being an unhealthy delusion.

Part of the reason Der Trihs’ statements are pegged as unsubstantiated claims is that he is an exaggerator and generally over-the-top on topics that others take a little more seriously. If he had just taken the time to swallow his bias and be forthcoming with his reasoning, this wouldn’t be a point of discussion.

I’ll add that others made gross overstatements as well that probably shined a light on their feelings or personal stances on the matter, rather than any factually based ideas. They did try to pass their statements off as if it was common knowledge or an easy inference, when in reality, evidence needs to be shown for such statements to be made in the manner they said it, otherwise it’s nothing more than an opinion.

I’m still scratching my head as to why you made cosmodan go through and provide examples of people making these statements. It’s all there for you to read, and you clearly have read a lot of it. I think this is more about you condoning the things that some atheists have said, and not the fact that they were trying to pass opinion as if it were a given, which I think is more or less what cosmodan was getting at.

674

(Bolding mine ) - I was actually responding to your argument as well as to other statements you’ve made in this thread - not as much “you” - I should have phrased it better in that “this person would” - as opposed to “you” - but I was responding to your arguments and phrasings. Its very difficult to decide if you are arguing your belief system or some third party.

“I” don’t want you to be anything you are not - but you keep saying well “what about if I believe x and not y” - so the only response is “you sound like a z because a, b, etc”

I will endeavor to better de-personalize the responses -

675

Please don’t ascribe motivations to other posters. Best to just discuss their posts and not their personalities.

676

If there were official definitions, this thread and many others would have gone much differently. There are no official definitions.

I’m not attempting to claim there are only one or certain ways a word can be defined. I’m working with the definitions one poster has already given.

Again, I’m looking at definitions a particular poster has given.

Almost no one defines an atheist with the requirement that he must think deities are not capable of existing. You even have stated in this thread that most atheists are agnostic atheists. But what’s important is that I’m debating someone that has defined atheism differently than you, so my responses to him have to be taken in that context and not in regards to how you define atheism.

677

SIGH!

Not as aware as you think since you incorretly used the 1st phrase as qualifiers for the 2nd.

I’ve engaed **Der Trihs ** in threads about belief and had other posters try to defend simialr statements as factual. You’ve seen his posts. What would you expect?

There’s also a najor difference between a pervasive belief held by millions and/or based on personal experiences , and a ecently created IPU. My point has always been that the way human belief systems work we all tend to accpet some things as true that haven’t been or perhaps can’t be proved.

In this case I absolutely can. There no objective logical scientific way to measure things like good and evil, or the positive and negative effects of belief and religion. It simply doesn’t exist. How do you measure the subjective objectively?

.
When did say I was done. I do get caught up sometimes , but part of the process is writing things down in order to examine them myself or to find better ways to express them. When an athest I had differences with earlier in the thread says “well put” I’ve accomplished something however minor.

Not in this case and I’ve explained why.

I suppose I could consitently challenge the concept by simply stateing “You realize there is no way to actually prove this is objectively true right?” Just as a point of logic and reason.

678

I’ve had a go round or two with Der Trihs on this subject. I can almost predict what kind of response I’ll get so I often don’t engage. When someone who is complaining about the lack of logic and decent reasoning in others states an unproveable satement is “obviously true” I take exception.

679

I don’t have any expectations. You said specific examples that backed up your claim in full exist in this thread. You haven’t shown any and I have responded why the statements you quoted don’t work. If you have examples from other threads you’d like to submit, I’ll take a look and give you my opinion.

There are differences and there are similarities. Some differences are relevant and so are some similarities. But we’re not talking about the IPU.

This is a point that differs from the statement I asked you to back up so we could discuss it. I went over this point already. And “proof” is an unrealistic standard.

This is plain silly. Your statement:

“My only objection is the wode blankets tossed by some atheists that all god belief is irrational and delusional because there’s no objecive proof, all the while exhibiting their own tendency to insist things are factual that they can’t prove.”

You want someone to be able to prove that when he says something is evil it is when in your opinion evil can’t be measured? Have you asked Der Trihs? Do you think it’s in the same ballpark? If someone thinks all god belief is irrational and delusional, then concluding that something has done more evil than good must be irrational and delusional? That’s a real stretch to my eyes.

Yes, in this case. And I’ve shown why.

680

All of my quotes in post 676 should have been attributed to YoungKusher and not cosmosdan. Not sure how that happened.